Questions for Dr. Marty Makary
Question:
According to one news report:
Makary is a director on the board at Harrow, an ophthalmic pharmaceuticals company, and an adviser to Sidecar Health, an insurance provider that aims to lower customer costs by eliminating provider networks and drug formularies. He’s also chief medical adviser to Nava, a benefits brokerage, and chief medical officer at Sesame, a cash-pay health service market that offers compounded semaglutide.
How much money have you made from this, and why should the American people believe you’ll represent their interests over these corporations?
Question:
In the first half of 2021, you wrote articles titled We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April, Herd Immunity is Near, Despite Fauci’s Denial, Don’t Buy the Fearmongering: The COVID-19 Threat Is Waning, and Risk Of COVID Is Now Very Low — It’s Time To Stop Living In Fear: Doctor. You also said, “We basically are in herd immunity right now” and “most of the country is at herd immunity.”
Please make the case that Dr. Fauci was wrong and we had herd immunity to COVID in May 2021. If you no longer think we had herd immunity in May 2021, where have you admitted error?
Question:
In August 2021, as the Delta variant swamped hospitals many states you said:
For most people right now, Delta is downgraded to a mild seasonal virus that causes mild common cold-like symptoms.
Please make the case that the Delta variant was a mild seasonal virus that causes mild common cold-like symptoms.
Question:
When the Omicron variant arrived, you called it “omi-cold” and “nature’s vaccine.” When the dust settled, the headlines read, During the Omicron Wave, Death Rates Soared for Older People, and Hospitalizations Of Young Children With The Virus Surged During The U.S. Omicron Wave.
Please make the case that the Omicron variant was “omi-cold” and “nature’s vaccine.”
Question:
In the summer of 2021, you said, “Immunity is probably lifelong.” Given the virus was just 1.5 years old, what evidence were you citing at this time? Is immunity lifelong?
Question:
In 2023, you said:
One thing RFK Jr. did is he would post true stories of children who died immediately after the vaccine. These were otherwise healthy children.
Yet, the article RFK Jr. Spent Years Stoking Fear And Mistrust Of Vaccines. These People Were Hurt By His Work said:
When 12-year-old Braden Fahey collapsed during football practice and died, it was just the beginning of his parents’ nightmare.
Deep in their grief a few months later, Gina and Padrig Fahey received news that shocked them to their core: A favorite photo of their beloved son was plastered on the cover of a book that falsely argues COVID-19 vaccines caused a spike of sudden deaths among healthy young people.
The book, called “Cause Unknown,” was co-published by an anti-vaccine group led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, who is now running for president. Kennedy wrote the foreword and promoted the book, tweeting that it details data showing “ COVID shots are a crime against humanity.”
The Faheys couldn’t understand how Braden’s face appeared on the book’s cover, or why his name appeared inside it.
Braden never received the vaccine. His death in August 2022 was due to a malformed blood vessel in his brain. No one ever contacted them to ask about their son’s death, or for permission to use the photo. No one asked to confirm the date of his death — which the book misdated by a year. When the Faheys and residents of their town in California tried to contact the publisher and author to get Braden and his picture taken out of the book, no one responded.
“We reached out in every way possible,” Gina Fahey told The Associated Press in an emotional interview. “We waited months and months to hear back, and nothing.”
Was Braden Fahey a “true story” of a child who died after getting the COVID vaccine? If not, what are some examples of these “true stories”?
Question:
What are your thoughts on Mr. Kennedy’s role in Samoa? What will you say if he tries to undermine confidence in the MMR, polio, and HPV vaccines?
Question:
In an article from June 2021 titled “Think Twice Before Giving the COVID Vax to Healthy Kids”, you wrote:
In reviewing the medical literature and news reports, and in talking to pediatricians across the country, I am not aware of a single healthy child in the U.S. who has died of COVID-19 to date.
Given that the deaths of healthy young people had been reported in the medical literature and news reports (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here), why did you say this?
Question:
In spring 2021, when the vaccines were brand new, you wrote “immunity kicks in fully about four weeks after the first vaccine dose, and then you are essentially bulletproof” and “there has never been a documented cases of a fully vaccinated person who is asymptomatic transmitting the virus.“
Did the COVID vaccines render people “bulletproof” and unable to transmit the virus? What effect do you think over-hyping vaccines at this time had on overall confidence in vaccines?
Question:
Vaccine-myocarditis occurs in roughly 1 in 10,000 young males after their second vaccine dose. Yet, you wrote “Hundreds of thousands of young ppl got myocarditis for no good reason.” Can you walk us through how you calculated this number?
Question:
In June 2021 you claimed it’s time to “move on and live a normal life” and said “right now we’re about at 150th the daily cases of a regular seasonal flu in the middle of that flu season.”
Since that time, how many Americans have died of COVID? How many have died of flu?
Question:
You have often spoken about the problem of chronic diseases, while at the same time repeatedly minimizing Long Covid. Can you explain Americans should trust you to solve chronic disease when you minimize a cause common cause of chronic disease?
Question:
In an article titled Natural Immunity to Covid Is Powerful. Policymakers Seem Afraid to Say So you said:
It’s okay to have an incorrect scientific hypothesis. But when new data proves it wrong, you have to adapt.
How have you modeled this behavior over the course of the pandemic?
Questions for Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Question:
Your article from March 2020, Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say? said:
If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.
Fear of COVID-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate — 2% to 4% of people with confirmed. COVID-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others. So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, 2 million to 4 million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed…
If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.
You noted that “a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million.”
Your article concluded:
If we’re right about the limited scale of the epidemic, then measures focused on older populations and hospitals are sensible.
Your co-author Dr. Eran Bendavid said you were “way off“, specifically about the prediction of 20,000-40,000 deaths. Do you disagree with Dr. Bendavid? Were you were correct about the limited scale of the epidemic? Did COVID have “one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%”? If not, then weren’t:
Shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified.
Question:
In July 2020 you said, “There’s some places where I think we’ve reached herd immunity.” You provided Sweden and New York as examples. Had those areas reached herd immunity in July 2020? If not, where did you admit error?
Question:
In October 2020, you said
An infection is a severe problem for older populations, and also for people who have certain chronic conditions. For younger populations under 70, it’s much milder.
The next year, COVID was a top 10 killer for every age group except babies, and 2022 was even worse for children. While COVID is obviously more dangerous for elderly people, please make the case that 70 was the appropriate age cut-off to claim it was “milder” at a time when no one was vaccinated.
Question:
You partnered with Jeffrey Tucker, a pro-tobacco, child-labor advocate with ties to Neo-Confederate organizations, to write the Great Barrington Declaration. Do agree with him that children should drop out of school to smoke with their friends during their breaks at Walmart? If not, why were you willing to work with Mr. Tucker on your signature document?
Question:
The first reported COVID death in the U.S. was on 2/28/2020. By November that year, COVID had killed at least 133 children according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. During that same time frame, the flu killed 9 children. That month, you gave an interview where you said “we’ve had more flu deaths among children this year than COVID deaths.”
Is 9 larger than 133?
Question:
In your article from June 2021, The Ill-Advised Push to Vaccinate the Young, you wrote:
The idea that everyone must be vaccinated against COVID-19 is as misguided as the anti-vax idea that no one should. The former is more dangerous for public health.
Please make the case it would have been “more dangerous” to vaccinate everyone than no one.
Question:
You have often written about the “lie that the vax stops disease transmission.” However, in April 2021, you had the following exchange with Dr. Zubin Damania:
Dr. Damania: Now, you and I are both vaccinated. We shook hands. We don’t wear masks. We’re about three feet apart from each other. And in the early days of the pandemic that would’ve gotten us both hung. But now I can say with confidence because I’ve looked at the data, like our chances of giving each other COVID are-
Dr. Bhattacharya: Are zero.
Dr. Damania: Pretty much zero.
Were you both lying?
Question:
During that interview you also said:
The central problem right now I think is the fear that people still feel about COVID.
Given that the Delta and Omicron variants arrived in less than a year, why was fear of COVID the “central problem” in April 2021.
Question:
The Great Barrington Declaration said:
The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.
It further claimed this mass “natural infection” of unvaccinated people would lead to herd immunity in “3 to 6 months“. What countries used focused protection to achieve herd immunity in 3-6 months? If you cannot provide any examples, why do you claim the Great Barrington Declaration was “vindicated.”
Question:
On August 1st, 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis quoted you as saying, “We have protected the vulnerable by vaccinating the older population.” That same day, the headlines read Florida Reports A Record Number Of COVID-19 Cases. Here are some headlines that followed immediately after this:
Had Florida protected the vulnerable at that time? Why did schools close while you were advising the state?
Question:
The Great Barrington Declaration said:
We have seen only a handful of reinfections. If the virus is like other corona viruses in its immune response, recovery from infection will provide lasting protection against reinfection, either complete immunity or protection that makes a severe reinfection less likely.
Are SARS-CoV-2 reinfections rare? Are they harmless? Is the article, Study Suggests Reinfections From the Virus That causes COVID-19 Likely Have Similar Severity as Original Infection, incorrect?
Question:
At the start of the pandemic you said that children did not spread COVID. Do you still believe this? If not, where have you publicly revised your position?
Question:
In May 2021, you discussed herd immunity and said “we are kind of already there.” You also said COVID was seasonal. The Delta wave arrived two months later. Did we have herd immunity in May 2021? Is COVID seasonal?
Question
The Great Barrington Declaration said:
Herd immunity occurs when enough people have immunity so that most infected people cannot find new uninfected people to infect.
Do you still agree with this definition of herd immunity? Using this definition, do we have herd immunity to COVID?
Question:
You said a 1 in 500 risk of a 40-year-old dying of COVID was “moderate“. However, you also said that a 15,000 risk of vaccine-myocarditis was a “serious side-effect.” Why is a low risk of a usually mild and temporary vaccine side effect more concerning than a high risk of literal death?
Question:
You said that “Lockdowns just postponed the inevitable.” Is it bad that many people first contracted COVID after they were vaccinated and hospitals were no longer overwhelmed? Should more people have contracted it April 2020?
Question:
You have been an outspoken advocate of free speech. Do you have any intentions to retaliate against your critics? Would you resign your position if President Trump threatened First Amendment rights in any way, or would you be comfortable being permanently linked with a regime that embraces censorship?
Question:
You experienced the pandemic from your laptop and lamented being called “fringe” in a private e-mail. However, you frequently launched juvenile,public personal attacks against doctors who worked in hospitals, unlike you. Is this the maturity and professionalism doctors who operate in the real-world can expect from you? What would you say to reassure the many doctors who neither trust or respect you?
